We never think we’ll get here . Sure, I know what it feels like to get up 3 times a night to make sure a hernia isn’t strangulated. Or to cook high calorie formula at 3am because I forgot to wash the dishes on schedule. Or just because I feel like making sure he’s breathing.

Tonight, both my fellas are in bed and I’m wide awake because we are going to visit Drake’s preschool tomorrow and sign up for the 2 year old class.

I spent the day today organizing the crazy amount of things Santa and relatives gifted little guy with. A large box of “baby” toys are packed up ready to go in the attic. More because I can’t bear to part with them yet rather than the “just in case” reason the grandmas are hoping for.

Christmas was wonderful. D smiled for Santa, and opened his gifts and demanded, “OPEN, oooopeenn” for each one so he could play. We kept our gifts small and took suggestions from his EI therapists on what would help him most over the next six months.

Those two ladies in Early Intervention have been the biggest blessing and biggest healer of my psyche. It’s hard to believe I was ever worried about that program. Hearing how we are doing the right things has been balm to both mine and Daddy’s souls.

Tomorrow feels like the start to our new year. This is the year of the potty, and the Magical (yeah, right) catch up year of 2. Twenty two months old. He still refuses to eat on occasion. Spends other days begging for cookies or chocolate milk. It’s actually pretty fun to see the looks on people’s faces when I allow him that sip of coffee he’s begging for.

When your 22 month old is just 20 lbs, he gets anything (a taste at least) that he wants and actually asking for it is like winning the Powerball lottery. It was a beautiful holiday, so different from the quiet season in isolation last year. I feel blessed and thankful beyond words.

One moment in particular was very precious to me. When I was 21 weeks pregnant, my husband and I attended our church’s 5 o’clock children’s Christmas Eve service. It was December 2011. They asked for the youngest child to help with placing the baby Jesus in the creche in the Nativity scene on the altar. It brought so many memories of services as a child, being an acolyte, and my family 800 miles away. I sat through most of the service in tears or filled to bursting with the joy of the thought of my child possibly being the youngest the following December. Instead of the 17-19 weeks I thought I had left, D was born in mid-February about 9 weeks after Christmas. Instead of an Spring baby, I have a Winter one. And Christmas 2012 was spent at home, just the 3 of us.

Christmas 2013, my child finally walked in the procession with me holding him, and put the baby Jesus in the manger to the sounds of O Come All Ye Faithful. It was the first night he said Jesus. It was the first night he sang along matching tone with the piano. Two years of milestones. Two years of fear and joy and wonder and disappointment. Two years of miracles.

Peace to all preemie families out there getting through each day in the NICU, or RSV isolation and beyond. I wish you the joy of the season and hope for your future.

I feel awesome after this week of celebration and rest. I am ready to face the annual follow-ups and IFSP meetings I see on January’s calendar. I’m not feeling quite so ready for the first day of school, but I’m sure we’ll survive and come to enjoy that, too.

Last week I found out the sad news that a very good friend of my Mother in law had passed away. She knew her from a job assignment in Virginia. Weirdly, it was the same hospital that my mother had her first job at as a new RN back in the 70’s.

Drake and I made the drive with her. My Aunt and Uncle live there, and they had never met my son with the distance, and not being able to travel with him until this summer as the main factors. It is the city I was born in. I love the history of it and even though I only lived there briefly as a child, it holds most of my vacation memories since we would go as often as we could to visit my Granny.

My Granny passed away from complications of bed rest and age on February 5, 2012. Fifteen days prior to Drake’s early birth at 30 weeks. I really hope the stress I put on myself from being unable to travel for her funeral was not a factor. At that time, I couldn’t foresee any greater tragedy than missing my final grandparents funeral. My nana passed away when I was going into high school, my papa when I was a sophmore in college, and my granddaddy (granny’s husband) died before my parents were ever married.

I am very thankful that I listened to my doctor’s advice and did not travel for the service. I can only imagine how awful it would have been if I had gone into labor even earlier or 8 hours from home.

Today though, I am grateful for the opportunity to go visit my first home. I was so glad to show Drake the lovely place of his great-granny’s final resting place and to say my own final farewell in person.

I came home with new memories of my Granny’s recently flipped and put on the market Cape Cod, of the beautiful Holy Cross cemetary in Richmond, a wonderful evening with my aunt and uncle, of my son’s 6 hour yell a thon through West Virginia on the way there, and the glory of Bubble Guppies and Peek-a-boo Barn. And now sitting proudly in our china cabinet my Granny’s lovely china.

Happy Holidays! I know I haven’t been around much. Busy, and I just feel quiet.

We have a ton of annual specialist follow ups and a new IFSP goal meeting this week. I’m prepping for all of that and my work external audit for year end.